The 1920s Arts and Entertainment: Overview

During the 1920s, the arts and media responded and adjusted to shifts in the larger society. World War I had changed America's relation to the world, the American economy boomed after the war, and young people embraced more modern lifestyles. The arts responded to all these social trends. The 1920s was known as the Jazz Age, reflecting the fact that new music and dance styles spread throughout the country. It was also a decade during which young people in particular began embracing a general loosening of morality. For many, the devastation of the war had resulted in a loss of the idealism that was so prevalent during the first part of the century, and the American dream of success was up for re-examination.

In this atmosphere, the theater became fertile ground for exploring serious issues. Playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill and Elmer Rice did so through introspective, earthy dramas; while Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Philip Barry, and George S. Kaufman explored the imbalances of the world through witty comedies.

While Hollywood movies often did not match the standards of the theater for seriously dealing with society's issues, the motion picture industry had quite an exciting decade, too. Many films concentrated on the new attitudes about morality and the effects on traditional domestic lifestyles. Others catered to society's fascination with exotic places. The most dramatic transformation in the motion picture industry, however, was dependent upon technology, not content. As the decade drew to a close, the perfection of new inventions changed movies from "silent films" into "talking pictures."

In literature, too, the Jazz Age brought stories of a discontented generation. There were many portraits of people psychologically damaged by the war, and studies of a generation that was breaking away from traditional American lifestyles that stressed hard work, church attendance, and devotion to the family. African American artists began to express anger at white society's treatment of their race. Their powerful and often eloquent protests became known as the Harlem Renaissance.

In dance, painting, and sculpture, groups of artists banded together in movements to represent objects and express ideas and feelings through realistic as well as abstract approaches. As the fine arts and popular arts flourished, so did the media arts. Radio programming was primitive, but it was finding its way in an ever-growing marketplace. Advertising agencies created catchy product logos to exploit the country's growing consumerism.